“Sermon” by Elizabeth T. Gray Jr.

A new poem by alumna Elizabeth T. Gray Jr. (poetry, ’09) appears online in New Orleans Review:

Sermon

Because that’s how you break through, said Blake.

How you see desire for what it is.

His brown hair was matting nicely, his loincloth

getting the hang of him. He had some chants down pat

and nicely-emerging ribs. Om-most there, he quipped,

striking a pose. The horse’s ass-ana, I believe,

said Greg quietly, and we braced ourselves

for another one on the virtue

of sitting still among charred tibias and pariah dogs.

Of trying to keep it hard but not come. Of that

No.